MAHANI TEAVE concert pianist educator environmental activist - Dworkin & Co.
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MAHANI TEAVE concert pianist educator environmental activist
ABOUT MAHANI Award-winning pianist and humanitarian Mahani Teave is a pioneering artist who bridges the creative world with education and environmental activism. The only professional classical musician on her native Easter Island, she is an important cultural ambassador to this legendary, cloistered area of Chile. Her debut album, Rapa Nui Odyssey, launched as number one on the Classical Billboard charts and received raves from critics, including BBC Music Magazine, which noted her “natural pianism” and “magnificent artistry.” Believing in the profound, healing power of music, she has performed globally, from the stages of the world’s foremost concert halls on six continents, to hospitals, schools, jails, and low-income areas. Twice distinguished as one of the 100 Women Leaders of Chile, she has performed for its five past presidents and in its Embassy, along with those in Germany, Indonesia, Mexico, China, Japan, Ecuador, Korea, Mexico, and symbolic places including Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate, Chile’s Palacio de La Moneda, and Chilean Congress. Her passion for classical music, her local culture, and her Island’s environment, along with an intense commitment to high-quality music education for children, inspired Mahani to set aside her burgeoning career at the age of 30 and return to her Island to found the non-profit organization Toki Rapa Nui with Enrique Icka, creating the first School of Music and the Arts of Easter Island. A self-sustaining ecological wonder, the school offers both classical and traditional Polynesian lessons in various instruments to over 100 children. Toki Rapa Nui offers not only musical, but cultural, social and ecological support for its students and the area. It’s infrastructure, recognized by a Recyclápolis Environmental National Award and built by the organization, is unique to Latin America and Polynesia; it uses recyclable materials, solar energy and water collectors, and the organization has developed a large organic agro- ecological project for food sovereignty. Her inspirational story was chronicled by 15-time Emmy Award-winning filmmaker John Forsen in a new documentary, Song of Rapa Nui, available globally on Amazon Prime Video. Recent and upcoming features include The New York Times, NPR, CBS Sunday Morning, PBS Newshour, Graydon Carter’s Airmail, the BBC, MPR’s Performance Today, CNN en Español, Amanpour and Company on CNN and PBS, Gramophone magazine and more. Mahani is the winner of numerous international piano competitions and awards, including the APES Prize for best classical music performance in Chile (where she performed Rachmaninov's Concerto No. 1 with the Orquesta Sinfonica de Chile), the Claudio Arrau International Piano Competition, the Merit Prize (arts) from Andrés Bello University, and the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Concerto Competition. In addition, she received the Advancement of Women Award from Scotiabank for her leadership and work promoting music on Easter Island, and was made honorary VP of the World Indigenous Business Forum in 2017. Making her debut at the age of nine, Mahani joined famed Chilean pianist Roberto Bravo on a series of concert tours. She earned her Bachelor of Music degree, with highest honors, from Austral University in Valdivia, Chile, her Masters degree at the Cleveland Institute of Music, where she studied with Sergei Babayan, and completed her post- graduate studies in Berlin, Germany, studying with Fabio Bidini at the Hanns Eisler Musik Hochschule. Mahani currently lives on Easter Island, combining concert tours with leading the Music School and motherhood. Mahani is a Steinway artist. She was “rediscovered” in 2018, which led to her debut recording, Rapa Nui Odyssey; A Mahani Teave Piano Recital, released January of 2021 on the Rubicon Classics Label to glowing reviews.
PRESS CNN INTERNATIONAL / CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR “A musical odyssey to one of the most remote places on Earth… a fascinating story...her wonderful music” GRAMOPHONE [UK] “Breadth and grandeur… heroic rhetoric and caressing lyricism… exquisitely poised… genuine eloquence. As fulfilling and enriching the musical culture of Rapa Nui surely must be, one hopes that Mahani Teave will somehow find a way to share her beautifully wrought, heartfelt pianism with audiences beyond her remote island.” RADIO NATIONAL [AUSTRALIA] “A stunning new album” RECORD GEIJUTSU MAGAZINE [JAPAN] 'Tokusen' (CD of the Month) “I was also very surprised to hear this recording...filled with wonderful elegance...Chopin's "Barcarolle" reminds me of Dinu Lipatti.” CLASSICALMUSIC Magazine (BBC) [UK] “Natural pianism. There’s genuine virtuosity, without one note of bluff, bluster or vulgarity…wide expressive range exquisitely controlled and intensely poetic…sincere, pure and magnificent artistry.” FRANCE MUSIQUE [FRANCE] “Mahani Teave, the virtuoso pianist from Easter Island...An exemplary journey.” GRAMOPHONE [UK] “Teave’s Chopin-playing inhabits a world all its own, almost painterly in its subtle colours and marked everywhere by an exquisitely poised cantabile… a sensitive diptych of genuine eloquence.” CONCERTONET “This isn’t your ordinary “Piano Recital!!” Perhaps being raised on a remote island in the South Pacific brings with it a nuanced suavity. Mahani Teave’s style has a gauzy, breezy trim in the sails. What a sendoff!” BBC NEWS [UK] “She is regarded as one of the region’s finest pianists.” CHILENOW [CHILE] “The young virtuoso…impressed with her talent, skill, and aplomb…received standing ovation at concert at the Embassy of Chile.” CNN EN ESPANOL “Virtuoso pianist” ICIMAG [CANADA] “…a woman with great charisma and a wisdom that is overwhelming given her early age. Pianist, director of an NGO, mother, referent of an original culture. It is not surprising, then, that in 2007 she was chosen among the 100 Women Leaders in the country, by the Mujeres Empresarias foundation and the newspaper El Mercurio, and that in 2016 she was distinguished with the Advancement of Women Award, from Scotiabank, for her leadership, discipline and entrepreneurial capacity.” TRAVELPULSE “Mahani Teave—guardian of the island’s traditions and an internationally recognized pianist.” EL DIARIO [MEXICO] “Few artists have achieved what the Chilean pianist Mahani Teave achieved at the Víctor Hugo Rascón Banda venue…inexhaustible energy and passion. The outstanding national artist captivated the audience” TELETRECE/T13 [CHILE] “Cool women: Mahani Teave, the virtuoso pianist”
TWICE at the top of the Billboard Chart
For the weeks of March 13 & May 29, 2021
Mahani Teave is the First Chilean Artist to Reach #1
on the Billboard Classical Charts
(As announced by the Sociedad Chilena de Autores e Intérpretes Musicales, SCD Chile)
15-time Emmy Award-winning Director/Producer John Forsen’s
documentary film about Mahani Teave nominated for 2021
NATAS NW Emmy Award in the category of Documentary –
Cultural/Historical.
natasnw.org/nominations-recipients
Credit...Miguel Sayago/Alamy Photo By Thomas May Feb. 26, 2021 From her home, halfway up the highest hill on Rapa Nui, Mahani Teave was describing the power of nature there to overwhelm. “On one side, I have an almost 180-degree view of the ocean,” she said in a recent interview. “A big fog is coming in from the hill on the other side.” The profusion of stars gives the black of the sky a seemingly “papier-mâché texture,” she said. When the sounds of crickets cease, profound silence completes “a stunning experience for the senses.” Teave, 38, learned to appreciate such stirring encounters while growing up on Rapa Nui — also known as Easter Island, the name imposed by European interlopers in 1722. From there, one of the remotest inhabited islands on the planet, this pianist went on to earn a place on the international concert stage. But rather than press on with a career of incessant touring, and quite possibly the only professional classical performer to emerge from Rapa Nui to date, she decided to return and establish the first music school on the small island nearly a decade ago. But she hasn’t stopped playing. Teave’s debut album, “Rapa Nui Odyssey,” was recently released on the British label Rubicon Classics. The recording project inspired “Song of Rapa Nui,” a new documentary streaming on Amazon Prime, directed by the Emmy Award-winning producer and filmmaker John Forsen and narrated by Audra McDonald.
It was at Teave’s island school that the Seattle-based musician, rare string instrument collector and arts patron David Fulton
had a chance encounter with her as part of a world cruise with his wife in the spring of 2018.
“After we had visited the moai” — the monolithic statues of revered ancestors that symbolize Rapa Nui — “we were taken to
the school to hear a performance,” Fulton said. “The kids had flowers in their hair and used the back porch of the school as a
stage.”
Then Teave began playing on a wobbly upright piano. “It was so moving and unexpected, even surreal,” Fulton said. “She
played a serious program. I thought: This is not a good pianist; this is one of the world’s greatest pianists.”
Fulton was shocked to discover that Teave had never released a recording. He invited her to Seattle to put down some of her
favorite repertoire at Benaroya Hall, engaging the Grammy Award-winning engineer Dmitriy Lipay, who works with the
Seattle Symphony and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Lipay recalls that he was concerned about whether there would be sufficient studio time for the challenging program Teave
had conceived — Bach, Liszt, Handel, Scriabin, Chopin and Rachmaninoff — with a musician who had never before
recorded in the studio. “With Mahani we were in for a big surprise,” he said. “The recording process with her was very
similar to the golden years, when artists were willing and able to give a complete performance in one take.”
Forsen, with whom Fulton had collaborated on four previous films, was asked to tape the recording sessions. As they learned
more of Teave’s story, they realized it merited a full documentary.
The pianist Mahani Teave playing on Rapa Nui, known as Easter Island, in 2018.
Teave’s first exposure to the classical repertory came from an itinerant ballet teacher, and for years her favorite work was
“The Nutcracker,” which she listened to incessantly on a cassette, practicing her steps at home.
“There were no classical radio stations on the island when I was a little girl,” she said. “Nobody even knew about classical
music, except for tidbits they might catch from some movie.”
When a retired violinist later settled temporarily on the island, bringing along a piano, Teave became fascinated by the
instrument and persuaded the woman to give her lessons. Teave also wrote to the Chilean pianist Roberto Bravo, pleading
with him to visit Rapa Nui. He did, and invited her to make her public debut; she was 9. On his advice, Teave’s mother, an
American who had settled on the island and married a native of Rapa Nui, took her daughter to Valdivia, in the south of
Chile, to study at the conservatory.
She went on to teachers in Cleveland and Berlin, a city where she felt especially at home and which became her base for
almost four years.
“There’s a respect there for history, for lessons learned, that’s very much like being on the island,” she said.
Her decision to return to Rapa Nui after launching a potentially stellar career was part of a slow process. Teave said she felt
she had devoted “the right amount of time” to each stage of her formation up to that point — “like a musical phrasing.”
“A little door opened and I decided to go through it because nobody else will,” she added. “I realized we need a school, and I
am the tool of this universe to do what has to be done at this moment.”
Rather than press on with a career of incessant touring, Teave returned to Rapa Nui and established the first music school on the small island nearly a decade ago.Credit...via Mahani Teave With Enrique Icka, a construction engineer with a parallel career performing traditional music who sings on one of the album’s tracks, Teave founded a school for music and the arts. They named it Toki, the Rapa Nui word for “tool” — the same word that denotes the objects used to carve the mysterious moai statues. “It’s a very symbolic word,” she said, “because we believe the present carves the future.” That vision extends to social concerns and the environment. Toki is self-sustainable, using rainwater collectors and solar panels. The building was constructed from recycled tires and the glass and plastic bottles left behind by hordes of tourists. Teave conceives of it as a kind of reversal of the traditional pattern of colonialist exploitation. She believes the school — and Rapa Nui, which has already been hit by the effects of climate change — can be a model for the outside world, showing the urgency of taking action on environmental issues. Normally about 100 students, from 2-year-olds to teenagers, study each year, enrolled in classes in both traditional Polynesian and Western classical music that meet after regular school hours. The classes were free until 2018, funded mostly through philanthropy, with supplements from Chilean government grants; the Fundación Mar Adentro; and the island’s cultural corporation. During the pandemic, the student body has dwindled to 60. Rapa Nui has been especially hard hit because of its reliance on tourism — the chief engine, along with farming, of the island’s economy. But even before 2020, a general lack of opportunities has led to high rates of alcoholism, drug abuse and domestic violence. “If the children want to be musicians, they get the possibility to study here and later continue off the island when they are old enough,” she said. “But the others who will not pursue music as a career learn values that come just with learning an instrument. I see it as a tremendously necessary element, especially in a community which is as vulnerable as ours.” Given the ills that historically have come from the West, did people on the island greet Teave’s interest with suspicion? “Quite the opposite,” she said. “Because of the history, everything which is brought in from outside is always looked on with great skepticism. But when it’s born from the community, it’s accepted wholeheartedly. I performed two concerts before we ever started the school, and the people were moved and so grateful.” Teave said she would like to travel a bit more to concertize. But whenever she leaves the island, Rapa Nui remains a part of her music. “All of these experiences are in my playing and the pieces that have accompanied my life,” she said. “Always.”
CBS NEWS April 18, 2021, 9:39 AM Building Easter Island's first music school Concert pianist Mahani Teave has traveled the world, But Rapa Nui, sometimes known as Easter Island, is her home. "Rapa Nui – that's what we call ourselves here also," she said. "That's our people, the Rapa Nui people." It's a triangle-shaped island about the size of Washington, D.C., way out in the South Pacific. And it's best known for the 13-foot statues called Moai. Scholars think they were built to honor the island's elders. "Our ancestors were all voyagers," Teave told correspondent Kelefa Sanneh, "and maybe that's what's in my blood, too, this coming and going." In the 1700s, Dutch explorers came to Rapa Nui. They landed on Easter, so they called it Easter Island. In the late 19th century, slave raiders from Peru abducted about half the island's population, and left behind smallpox, which killed many of the remaining islanders. Only 111 Rapa Nui survived. The Moai of Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island. CBS NEWS "We're talking about a place that's only been inhabited by humans for maybe 1,000 years?" Sanneh said.
"That is true, right, but a lot has happened," said Miki Makihara, a linguistic anthropologist at Queens College in New York, who has been studying Rapa Nui culture for 30 years. "It's a remarkable history of survival and reconstruction." Sanneh said, "Those 111 people kept the language alive, and transmitted it to the next generation – it's a comeback story." "Yes!" Makihara laughed. Nowadays, Rapa Nui is part of Chile, which is the closest mainland – 2,000 miles away. And Teave is a descendant of those 111. Teave was born in Hawaii to an American mother. But her father is from Rapa Nui, and she spent most of her childhood there: "I feel, like, so strongly about the island, and here are my roots. This is where I learned all my first everything." She still remembers the day she heard that someone had brought something new onto the island: a piano. "'We gotta go see that piano! Let's go see!' So, we get to the lady's house. And she opens the door. 'Please, can I go touch your piano?' And I don't think she even got a chance to answer. And then after that, I was like, 'Please, please, I want piano lessons.'" There were no piano teachers on the island, so Teave asked the woman who owned the piano to give her lessons. "She got a piece of paper out, she drew some lines: 'These are the notes. Go home and learn them,'" Teave laughed. "I memorized what each little thing on each little line and space meant. And after a few days, she said, 'You know what? You can start coming to practice at my house.'" In 1992, Teave's family moved to Chile, where she could study at a conservatory. She was nine. Mahani Teave became enamored with the first piano on the island of Rapa Nui. She would go on to a career as an internationally recognized concert pianist. CBS NEWS Sanneh asked, "Was that a scary time for you?" "It was just a very confusing time. And at the same time, there's this possibility to be able to continue with, you know, wonderful music." When she was 19, she left Chile to continue her studies, first in Cleveland, then Berlin. Soon, she was a celebrated concert pianist. "I would feel soaked with so many wonderful things, you know, going to amazing concerts and interacting with incredible musicians," Teave said. Sanneh asked, "Did you always know you wanted to come back to Rapa Nui at some point?" "Well, I always felt the connection to the island. And what about the children? They don't have any chance in society, and who's ever gonna do anything about it?" Teave returned to Rapa Nui a decade ago, and in 2014 she built the island's first music school. Last year, it was featured in the documentary, "Song of Rapa Nui."
"We wanted to make an inspiring place, like, a message of hope," she said. Internationally acclaimed concert pianist Mahani Teave, who grew up on the island of Rapa Nui, returned and founded the Rapa Nui School of Music and the Arts. CBS NEWS The school was constructed using an abundant un-natural resource: trash. "We are in a garbage vortex, so garbage from all over the world comes through the currents of the Pacific," Teave said. This school, built from garbage, is all about transformation. Sanneh asked, "Are you hoping to find the next great concert pianist on Rapa Nui?" Pianist Mahani Teave. CBS NEWS She replied, "The children have the possibility to develop their talent. I really think it's important that they cultivate the values, the virtues that are learned when you learn an instrument. You learn perseverance, you learn about teamwork, respect." Before the pandemic, some people on Rapa Nui were concerned that tourism was damaging the island. Now, Mahani Teave says she's optimistic about the day when visitors can come back: "It's something that needs to find a harmony, because the way it was happening was not harmonious, either to the island, to the people, to the nature. Give them an actual experience of what it really is to be here." "And maybe a concert?" Sanneh asked. "Maybe a concert. But we need a concert piano!" Teave said. "This is a request from Rapa Nui – less garbage, more grand pianos!" "Exactly! More grand pianos!" Story produced by Mary Raffalli. Editor: Joseph Frandino. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rapa-nui-first-music-school-on-easter-island/
Interview
with
Christiane
Amanpour
WATCH FULL VIDEO AS LINKED BY CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR ON TWITTER:
https://twitter.com/i/status/1375547235593818115Mahani Teave: Tiny Desk (Home) Concert
June 24, 2021 5:00 AM ET Tom Huizenga Mahani Teave is the 1st Chilean classical artist to appear on NPR Tiny Desk
Our Tiny Desk (home) concerts have visited many faraway places – from Lang Lang in China to Mdou Moctar in Niger – but none as far-
flung as Easter Island. The 63-square-mile isle, called Rapa Nui by its residents, is located some 2,000 miles off the coast of Chile.
And yes, classical music thrives there – thanks largely to Mahani Teave, the pianist who offers this engaging performance from the music
school she co-founded. As a child, Teave saw the first piano brought to the island in 1992 and dreamed of becoming a world-class concert
pianist. It was a dream she fulfilled, but just as she was poised to launch her international career, an even stronger dream tugged at her
heart.
In 2014, she broke ground on the Toki School of Music, aiming to teach traditional and classical music to Easter Island's children.
Constructed from over 2,500 used tires and 60,000 cans and bottles, the building, with its cisterns and solar power, is a testament to
Teave's vision for sustainability.
Even the straight-back yellow chair Teave uses as a piano bench in this performance seems repurposed from her kitchen. She begins with a
sparkling Allemande by Handel, followed by a beguiling performance of a Chopin Nocturne. Teave closes with an ancestral song , featuring
sisters Eva and Tama Tucki Dreyer. The story follows Rapa Nui's first king, whose reign coincided with a natural disaster. It's a metaphor,
Teave says, for our planet, to "leave this place a little bit better than how we found it." With her fine playing and her music school, Teave has
done exactly that.
SET LIST CREDITS
▪ George Frideric Handel: "Suite No. 5 in E, II. Allemande" ▪ Video and Audio: Sergio Moya
▪ Frédéric Chopin: "Nocturne in B-flat minor, Op. 9, No. 1"
▪ Traditional: "I hē a Hotumatu'a e hura nei" TINY DESK TEAM
MUSICIANS ▪ Producer: Tom Huizenga
▪ Video Producer: Kara Frame
▪ Mahani Teave: piano ▪ Audio Mastering: Josh Rogosin, Andy Huether
▪ Eva Tucki Dreyer: vocals ▪ Associate Producer: Bobby Carter
▪ Tama Tucki Dreyer: vocals ▪ Tiny Production Team: Bob Boilen, Maia Stern,
Gabrielle Pierre
▪ Executive Producer: Keith Jenkins
▪ Senior VP, Programming: Anya GrundmannOn A Remote Island, A Music School Flourishes Pianist Mahani Teave returned home to Easter Island to teach children March 9, 2021 Tom Huizenga Credit: Fidget and Rushmore Films As pianist Mahani Teave was poised to launch her international career, she remembered the moment when the first piano arrived on her remote island. It was 1992, she was nine years old and the instrument landed on Rapa Nui, or Easter Island as it was named by Europeans. Best known for its mysterious, sentinel-like stone statues, the island lies some 2000 miles off the coast of Chile. "I had to go, break all the rules, and just go straight to this lady's house and see this piano," Teave told filmmaker John Forsen, who directed Song of Rapa Nui, a new documentary about the pianist and her mercurial career. Teave took her first lessons on that piano. They cemented her love for the instrument and inspired the young musician to eventually leave her island home for years of study and dreams of becoming a star soloist. Her debut album was released earlier this year. Teave's departure for the mainland, just a few months after those lessons, came at the suggestion of Roberto Bravo, a well-known pianist from Chile who visited the island and heard her play. Still just nine years old, she enrolled in the Austral University of Chile in Valdivia. As a teenager, awards began to roll in, including a first place finish at the Claudio Arrau Piano Competition. After nine years, Teave left Valdivia with the intent to study in Europe, but a stop off in the U.S. turned into a six-year stint, studying at the Cleveland Institute of Music as a pupil of pianist Sergei Babayan. From there she was off to Berlin to build her performing career under the wing of Fabio Bidini. "The future of Mahani is only in her hands," Bidini says in the documentary. "She's a wonderful package – musically, as a person, the charisma that she has in public, the luminosity and the power of concentration that she has in public is absolutely first class." But after four years in Berlin, Teave began feel the island tugging on her heart and her head. She began to think of giving up a promising career that was barely off the ground. "I could have stayed there perfectly and would have also been very happy," Teave says. "But there was this umbilical cord connecting me to the island and saying, 'Mahani, you had all these opportunities. There are lots of other children who are waiting to have them too, and you only can do this.'" The memories of her youthful hunger to learn music haunted her. She recalled the pain felt when good teachers appeared on the island, then suddenly left. "It would get cut off and cut off and it was breaking children's dreams over and over again," she says. Teave felt an urge to change her homeland. She moved back to Chile first because, once again, the island lacked a single piano. After a three-year struggle with funding and logistics, a pair of upright pianos were dismantled and flown to Rapa Nui in 2011. With instruments in hand, Teave's dream of building a free music school for kids was beginning to take shape.
Mahani Teave teaches a student at her Toki School of Music on Easter Island. Fidget and Rushmore Films/Courtesy of the artist With donated land, instruments and crowd-sourced funding, Teave, along with her partner Enrique Icka, a construction engineer, broke ground on their Toki School of Music in 2014. From the start, they envisioned a sustainable, yet stylish building – "an earth ship in the shape of an eight-petaled flower." Eighty volunteers from around the world came to help build the structure. Materials were right at their fingertips. Rapa Nui, as it turns out, sits in a part of the Pacific Ocean that naturally traps garbage from thousands of miles. The school is partly constructed from over 2,500 tires and 60,000 cans and bottles. Solar panels soak up energy on the roof, while cisterns collect rain water and the surrounding gardens provide food. In 2016, the Toki School of Music officially opened. The island's children learn more than just Mozart and Beethoven. Teave includes her island's traditional music and dance in the curriculum. "I find great joy when I see the children learning and sharing amongst each other," she says. "And when I think of this space, it's a space we would have liked to have had as children to study. How many kids will remember this as a highlight of their youth, and maybe they'll continue on." Teave, at age 37, may have given up a successful career as a concert pianist, but through her hard won ambition she gained something more — the satisfaction of supporting the dreams of children, hungry to learn music.
In bringing the Song of Rapa Nui to the world,
pianist brings music education hom
e
May 11, 2021 6:25 PM EDT By — Jeffrey Brown By — Mike Fritz
Mahani Teave grew up on one of the most remote islands on Earth, but the 38-year-old pianist still found a way to bring her
music to the world — and music education to Rapa Nui. Jeffrey Brown tells the story of her unusual journey and her new
album as part of our ongoing arts and culture series, CANVAS.
pbs.org/newshour/show/in-bringing-the-song-of-rapa-nui-to-the-world-pianist-brings-music-education-homeR apa Nui belongs to Chile the way Hawaii belongs to the United States. Since European explorers first set foot there on Easter Day 299 years ago, the lonely speck of rock—“Easter Island”—has haunted the world’s dreams as the realm of the moai, guardian spirits in stone, monumentally arrayed along the shore, their backs to the Pacific. Growing up in their shadow, a nine-year-old named Mahani Teave fell under the spell of an object scarcely less numinous: Rapa Nui’s very first piano, a humble upright. The visitor from abroad who had shipped it over had scarcely moved in when little Mahani appeared at her door, not to be turned away. Thus her studies began. Who could have guessed that in time this child of the island—born to an American mother and a local father—would emerge as an international concert pianist? Lang Lang, her rock-star colleague
from the backwater of Shenyang, likes to quote a Chinese proverb to the effect that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. In the end, every career is a moonshot. It wasn’t long before Teave’s mother whisked her to Valdivia, in southern Chile, for more professional instruction. In her late teens, Teave began graduate work at the Cleveland Institute of Music, followed six years later by three years at the no less prestigious Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler, in Berlin. Still in her 20s, Teave had begun to make her mark in selective competitions and on the concert circuit. Yet Rapa Nui was calling her back. “There was this umbilical cord connecting me to the island,” Teave recalls. “‘Honey,’ it was saying, ‘you’ve had all these opportunities. There are lots of other children back home waiting to have them, too. Only you can do this.’” Making music: Teave leads a group of young musicians, Rapa Nui. Directed by John Forsen with narration by Audra McDonald, the new documentary Song of Rapa Nui fills in colorful details of Teave’s formative years. In addition, it chronicles the construction of her school—a facility of airy Mediterranean grace built from six years’ worth of flat tires, tin cans, and empty bottles set into the walls like chunks of stained glass. Of course, it took a village. In addition to Teave, the NGO Toki Rapa Nui’s Web site lists eight co-founders, among them a construction engineer, an obstetrician, a lawyer, and an architect, all of whom also sing, write songs, or dance. The curriculum includes individual lessons in piano, violin, and cello, as well as classes in music appreciation and traditional arts. There’s even a farm modeling sustainability and food sovereignty, critical values for an island too long dependent on air shipments of all essentials—and critical likewise for Spaceship Earth. Teave’s burgeoning responsibilities have not eclipsed her love for the piano or performance. In other news, the pianist has just released her first CD, a recital ranging from Baroque selections of Bach and Handel to the virtuoso fare of Chopin, Liszt, and Scriabin. It closes with an island song, first chanted in the traditional manner, then elaborated on the keyboard. On Zoom, Teave reflected on her personal history, her musical passions, and the challenges for her island and her school. MATTHEW GUREWITSCH: You can remember when there wasn’t a single piano on Rapa Nui. And you can remember when there was just one. How many are there today? MAHANI TEAVE: At the school we have nine pianos and five electric keyboards. And there are others in private homes. M.G.: Who tunes them? M.T.: Before the pandemic, we would fly technicians in from Santiago, five hours away. That’s not possible now. But one of the teachers has learned how and is doing well. She has a great ear.
M.G.: How hard is the island climate on a piano?
M.T.: Not as bad as I expected. Our school is away from the ocean, so that helps. To help with the humidity,
we put little cups in the instruments and fill them with salt.
M.G.: Once that first piano showed up on Rapa Nui, your life changed fast, didn’t it?
M.T.: Yes. I had my first lesson in April 1992. That Christmas, my mother flew me to Valdivia, in southern
Chile, so I could study more seriously.
M.G.: By this time, you were already playing Mozart’s Sonata No. 16 in C major and Beethoven’s Für Elise.
M.T.: My teacher on Rapa Nui, Erica Putney, was really a violinist, not a pianist. She hadn’t come to Rapa
Nui to teach, and she didn’t have lesson books. So she just started me out with the easiest pieces she had.
M.G.: People always say that you can’t go home again. Yet after nearly 20 years on three different
continents, you resettled in Rapa Nui. What’s the longest you had been away?
M.T.: No matter where you start from, it’s a very long trip. I think the longest I was ever away was five
years.
“There was this umbilical cord connecting me to the island.”
M.G.: I wonder if you’re one of the musicians who figured out that some of the more brutal realities of the
industry just were not for them. The competition culture, for instance. What was that like for you?
M.T.: There are some very positive aspects to competitions. They force you to push yourself to your limits
and even further. They can open many doors. But I could never make peace with the idea that people are
always comparing us. When I got first place, I felt sad for the other players. And when I didn’t get first place,
I would wonder why. What was missing? As an artist, you have to have something to say—and also to
communicate humility. It’s not about us being rock stars.
M.G.: How about touring?
M.T.: When you go from the airport to the hotel to the concert hall and back to the airport, it’s very intense.
It’s wonderful to play at beautiful concert halls, with their magnificent instruments and amazing acoustics—
but also to take the music to more unconventional places. I’ve played in Antarctica. I’ve done outreach
concerts, playing Bach in a favela for people who never saw a piano before, and they’ve listened with the
greatest respect and concentration. I’ve performed in prisons. You meet incredible people. If you don’t get to
see the sights, you might have a late dinner at a restaurant that specializes in wonderful cuisine you’ve
never had before. I appreciated those things. But always, the great reward is the music—music so sublime
that it lifts your spirits beyond the difficulties.
M.G.: And yet, you walked away just as all the training was really beginning to pay off.
M.T.: It wasn’t so much that I walked away. It was more of a segue. As the school grew, the work became
more time-consuming, especially the fundraising and the administrative things, which are not my favorite
part, but there’s no one else to do it. And then I got married and had my daughter. So, I can’t be touring all
the time, no. But that’s not to say I can never travel.As an artist, you have to have something to say—and also to communicate humility. It’s not about us
being rock stars.
M.G.: From Song of Rapa Nui, it’s clear that Sergei Babayan has been a huge inspiration. You went to
Cleveland for a masterclass with him and stayed for six years. Apart from him and Fabio Bidini, your
professor in Berlin, do you have other artistic heroes and role models?
M.T.: Absolutely! Starting with Martha Argerich, a phenomenal musician! I got to hear her in Berlin with
the cellist Mischa Maisky. But my greatest inspiration comes from the older artists: Josef Hofmann, Ignaz
Friedman, Sviatoslav Richter, Emil Gilels… And it’s not just pianists. Today, on my half-hour radio show, I
played David Oistrakh in movements from the Brahms and Tchaikovsky violin concertos. I squeeze in as
much music as I can so people get to know classical music and to like it. Another hero of mine is Jascha
Heifetz. What he does with his violin in the second movement of the Korngold concerto—I cannot believe
such beauty. Among living artists I’m absolutely blown away by the countertenor Philippe Jaroussky. It
would be a dream to do with the piano what he does with his voice.
M.G.: I think about you and I think about Lang Lang, two kids from the ends of the earth who dreamed of
making a life as pianists. You’ve both made the dream come true, and you’re both dedicated to giving back,
he with his foundation, you with your school.
M.T.: The choices we make, the roads we take, are unique to each person. I think we all want our world to
be a better place, but sometimes we don’t know how to make that happen. Lang Lang has so many doors
open and can do incredible projects because he has those horizons. I was well known in Chile, and that
opened many doors, so I could help others. But regardless of where we are in our life—fame-wise, money-
wise, age-wise—it doesn’t matter. You don’t have to be famous to do something, you have to want to do
something. You can change a person’s life by a gesture.
Song of Rapa Nui is available for streaming on Amazon Prime Video. Mahani Teave: Rapa Nui Odyssey: Piano
Recital is available to purchase on Amazon
Matthew Gurewitsch writes about opera and classical music for A I R M A I L . He lives in Hawaii
Photo: Gentileza Grupo Copesa (portrait)Mahani Teave: “Yo tomé un rumbo distinto, nunca quise la vida de un concertista” Andrés Gómez 6 mar 2021 A los 38 años, la virtuosa pianista de Rapa Nui grabó su primer disco, gracias al apoyo de un magnate americano. Los ingresos del álbum van en beneficio de Toki Rapa Nui, la escuela de música para niños que fundó en la isla y por la cual abandonó su promisoria carrera en Europa. Amazon Prime estrena un documental sobre su historia. Cuando dejó de tocar, el público estaba emocionado. Mahani Teave recibía a una delegación de pasajeros del Crystal Cruiser en su escuela. Levantada sobre una colina de tierra rojiza que mira al océano, Toki Rapa Nui es una academia que ofrece clases de piano, violín, cello y de instrumentos tradicionales, como el ukelele. Edificada con materiales de reciclaje, cuenta con salas de ensayo, estudio y auditorio, y en su exterior crece un huerto ecológico. Aquella tarde de marzo de 2018 los niños ofrecieron una pequeña presentación, y luego la directora tocó composiciones de Bach y Liszt. Entre el público se encontraba el empresario y coleccionista de Stradivarius David Fulton: “Esa actuación fue el punto culminante absoluto de todo el crucero mundial de cuatro meses para nosotros”, diría. Exviolinista de la Sinfónica de la Universidad de Chicago y dueño de una valiosa colección de violines antiguos, Fulton se acercó a Mahani Teave tras su tocata. Quería llevarse un disco. Amablemente, ella le explicó que no contaba con grabaciones. A esa fecha la pianista, ganadora del Concurso Internacional Claudio Arrau, premiada por el Instituto de Música de Cleveland, nunca había entrado a un estudio de grabación. Poco después, Fulton le envió un e-mail. “Fue bien conmovedor todo lo que me decía, cómo había quedado impresionado con la escuela, con mi interpretación, y sus ganas de ayudar”, recuerda la pianista desde la isla. Con gran cultura musical, Fulton reconoció que se encontraba ante una pianista de élite, y se sensibilizó ante su historia: tras estudiar en Cleveland y en la Academia de Música Hans Eisler en Berlín, y cuando comenzaba su trayectoria de concertista, decidió dejar Europa y regresar a Hanga Roa. Quería cumplir un sueño: levantar una escuela de música para que los niños rapa nui no tuvieran que viajar al continente, como hizo ella cuando tenía nueve años. El coleccionista americano la invitó a grabar un disco en Seattle en beneficio de la escuela. Mahani Teave viajó con su familia y grabó con el ingeniero Dmitriy Lipay, quien suele trabajar con la Filarmónica de Los Ángeles. La pianista escogió un repertorio con obras de Bach, Haendel, Chopin, Liszt y Rachmaninov.
“Como nunca había grabado, estaba nerviosa, pero no me imaginaba sentarme y hacer toma tras toma tras toma, porque eso me parecía una tortura china”, cuenta. “Así que decidí hacerlo lo mejor posible en una o dos tomas y que fuera lo más fidedigno a una interpretación en vivo, obviamente con todas las ventajas de la grabación en estudio y con un ingeniero topísimo”. Reservaron tres días de estudio y solo necesitaron dos. Hace un par de semanas, la grabación salió a la venta en un disco doble editado por el sello Rubicon Classics, con el título Odyssey Rapa Nui. Paralelamente, el director John Forsen realizó el documental Song of Rapa Nui, que aborda la historia de la pianista y puede verse en Amazon Prime. “Yo le había hecho el quite a grabar un CD, no sentía deseos de hacerlo, pero cuando esto surgió, fue el momento preciso: tengo las obras que quiero grabar, y hacerlo en las condiciones óptimas, con un ingeniero excepcional, fue una bendición”. En 2018 Mahani Teave fue invitada al ciclo Grandes Pianistas del Teatro Municipal. En la sala más importante del país probó el repertorio que grabaría en su primer disco. Pero entonces recibió críticas poco elogiosas. De cierto modo, el disco está borrando ese recuerdo: la revista Classic Music de la BBC la cubrió de aplausos y describió el álbum como “un arte sincero, puro y magnífico”. ¿Esperaba una recepción así? No. Yo pensaba hacer el CD en beneficio de la escuela, pero no me imaginé todo esto... Yo tomé un rumbo distinto, no voy a compararme con los grandes pianistas a quienes admiro. El tipo de vida de un concertista que día por medio está en una ciudad diferente no es algo que yo quiero y nunca lo he buscado, pero sí poder entregar la música a la gente. Lo que yo tengo que decir es para quienes quieran oírlo y lo entrego con todo mi corazón y con la sinceridad de mis sentimientos. ¿Nunca se proyectó como concertista? Siempre tuve conciertos. En los años en Berlín tuve giras, pero el estilo de vida de estar haciendo 300 conciertos al año no es algo que quise. Sí dar conciertos, pero en una medida amigable con mi ritmo de vida. A mí me gusta vivir con las obras musicales, para mí no se trata de sacar una obra del bolsillo y tocarla. El proceso de vivir con las obras varias semanas o meses es algo que da profundo sentido a mi vida y a mis conciertos. Yo necesito vivir con las obras un tiempo. No me gustaría tener que tocar un programa distinto cada semana; para entrar en la profundidad de la obra necesito tiempo. Cuando pase la pandemia, espero retomar, pero en su justa medida. Y también respetando la vida: yo tengo a mi hija, que es lo más importante, y la escuela, a la que quiero dedicarle tiempo. Esto lo conversamos con David Fulton y él me decía “yo me maravillo de tu elección, porque lo más natural y fácil sería seguir con el ritmo de conciertos...”. El que está tocando día por medio también sacrifica la vida familiar, sacrifica muchas cosas. ¿Siempre quiso volver a Rapa Nui? Desde el primer día que me fui, siempre añoré la isla. Siempre estuve muy unida a esta tierra, y acá estoy tranquila, contenta, y ahora que tenemos aviones, celulares, es todo tan fácil. Ahora no cuesta nada viajar a Europa. ¿No extraña la vida más cosmopolita? Extraño ciertas cosas de Europa y Estados Unidos, por ejemplo tener acceso a conciertos, museos, exposiciones. Berlín me encantó. Pero acá también tengo cosas maravillosas, puedo bañarme en el mar, vivo rodeada de naturaleza, tengo una tranquilidad que no tiene precio. Presente amoroso El primer día que salió de Rapa Nui fue en la Navidad de 1992. Tenía nueve años, y llevaba seis meses practicando piano. Pero su profesora, una violinista yugoslava y dueña del único piano de la isla, se marchaba. Por entonces, Roberto Bravo ofreció un concierto en Hanga Roa, escuchó a Mahani y le sugirió seguir estudios en el continente. El músico la recomendó con la pianista Ximena Cabello, del Conservatorio de la Universidad Austral. Dos décadas después, Ximena Cabello se convertía en maestra de piano de Toki Rapa Nui. “Ella y su marido fueron pilares de la escuela”, cuenta hoy.
Fundada en 2013, Toki nació con la idea de ofrecer clases gratuitas, pero tras siete años ese propósito se hizo
inviable. Con el respaldo de Fundación Maradentro, la escuela recibe aportes de los padres y autogestiona recursos
públicos y privados.
Niños de la escuela Toki Rapa Nui, dirigida por Mahani Teave.
La pandemia alejó el turismo de la isla y afectó los ingresos de
la escuela. Entonces recibieron apoyo del programa Global
Leaders, quienes lanzaron un crowfunding que les proporcionó
recursos.
En lengua rapa nui, Toki designa “a la herramienta con que se
construyó todo en la isla, y nosotros somos el Toki para
construir un futuro mejor para nuestros hijos y un presente más
amoroso”, dice.
Nacida en Hawái en 1983 de madre norteamericana, su padre fue un músico tradicional en la isla. En algún
momento ella se planteó la pregunta respecto de su identidad y del arte que practica como herencia europea.
“Lo he pensado muchísimo a lo largo de los años y siento que en la isla tenemos una gran variedad de influencias.
Por ejemplo, parte de nuestra música tradicional incluye la guitarra, un instrumento que no es rapa nui y ni siquiera
polinésico. El acordeón: el tango rapa nui se baila con un toque propio. En la última audición llegaron casi 50
niños que quieren aprender estos instrumentos, y acá hacemos un esfuerzo por mantener nuestras tradiciones. Las
clases del área tradicional son muy importantes. Tuvimos que pararlas en diciembre, cuando se nos cayeron los
financiamientos, pero estamos haciendo lo posible para retomar esa área. Yo soy feliz de tocar música clásica,
porque mi don es para eso, y estoy tratando de ver la posibilidad de hacer arreglos en rapa nui”, cuenta.
La escuela de música Toki Rapa Nui fue construida con materiales de
reciclaje: piedras, cartón, miles de neumáticos, latas y botellas.
Casada con el ingeniero y músico Enrique Icka, Mahani Teave
cree en el poder transformador de la música y en su valor para
enfrentar problemas sociales que afectan a la isla, como el
alcoholismo. “Aprender un instrumento aleja a los niños y
jóvenes de los vicios, les enseña disciplina, tolerancia, tienen
logros y eso los motiva. La orquesta les enseña el trabajo en
equipo, la colaboración, el respeto, el oírse unos a otros. En un
momento en que dirigí la orquesta, había una violinista que era el primer violín y daba la entrada a los demás; yo
veía a los otros muchachos y pensaba que ellos van a poder respetar a una mujer, porque aquí en la orquesta lo
están haciendo, oyendo su indicación de entrar, sus matices, sus tiempos”.
¿Cómo es el problema de género en la isla?
Es un tema muy importante acá. Hay altísimos niveles de violencia intrafamiliar o de género. Y es algo que se está
trabajando como comunidad, muy a conciencia. Hay artículos que se están analizando para poder entender los
posibles cambios que se podrían hacer y de alguna manera tratar de que haya mayor igualdad y también más
justicia.
¿Espera que la escuela sea un semillero de futuros músicos?
Nos gustaría que la escuela fuera un semillero de músicos, pero sobre todo el semillero de personas con una base
valórica muy fuerte.Occasionally a recording appears with a backstory so extraordinary that its intrinsic musical merit risks being overshadowed. The 1946 Columbia release of Chopin played by Maryla Jonas, a Polish war refugee who had been ‘rediscovered’ by Arthur Rubinstein in Brazil a year earlier, is one example. The sensational 1977 International Piano Archives recording of the 75- year-old Ervin Nyiregyházi playing Liszt is another. The story behind ‘Rapa Nui Odyssey’, a recital by pianist Mahani Teave, is no less surprising. In spring 2018 David Fulton, a former software designer and Microsoft executive, who now collects instruments and produces films in Seattle, visited Rapa Nui with his wife. Like all tourists, Fulton writes in his introduction, they had come to marvel at the giant moai sculptures and enjoy the beauty of the island and its native culture. Rapa Nui, or Easter Island, one of the most remote inhabited islands on earth, is a special territory of Chile, with a 2017 population of fewer than 8000 people. On a side-trip, the Fultons were taken to a music school near Hanga Roa, far south on the island’s western coast, where they were charmed by the performances of the young students. But charm turned to astonishment when Teave seated herself at an old battered upright and began to play. On the basis of this performance the Fultons invited Teave, her husband and young daughter to visit them in Seattle and there to make a recording. ‘Rapa Nui Odyssey’ is the result. Bach’s Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue, not perhaps the latest word in Baroque stylishness, is nevertheless a model of clarity, beautifully paced and deeply felt. The Liszt B minor Ballade has characteristic breadth and grandeur, moving easily between contrasted poles of heroic rhetoric and caressing lyricism, its taut narrative moving inexorably towards its triumphant denouement. The same feel for Liszt’s characteristic rhetoric permeates the more familiar ‘Vallée d’Obermann’, the spirit of which Teave enters into wholeheartedly but without histrionics or excess of any kind. The E major Handel Suite is neatly contrasted with the Bach Fantasy and Fugue, revealing a secure grasp of the two masters’ stylistic fingerprints. Teave’s Chopin-playing inhabits a world all its own, almost painterly in its subtle colours and marked everywhere by an exquisitely poised cantabile. After a luxuriously sensual Barcarolle, the febrile desperation of the B minor Scherzo provides vividly apt contrast. A splendidly Italianate Op 9 No 1 is paired with a desolate E minor Op posth to create a sensitive diptych of genuine eloquence. Works by Rachmaninov and Scriabin bring other flavours and moods to this varied programme, which concludes with a touching encore of traditional Rapa Nui music. As fulfilling and enriching the musical culture of Rapa Nui surely must be, one hopes that Mahani Teave will somehow find a way to share her beautifully wrought, heartfelt pianism with audiences beyond her remote island. Author: Patrick Rucker
The Easter Island pianist playing for her home's future
By John Bartlett Santiago, Chile Published 1 July
As sea levels rise and the climate changes, Mahani Teave's island home and its culture are increasingly under threat.
Easter Island, or Rapa Nui, is one of the world's most remote inhabited island - a 164-sq-km dot in the South Pacific Ocean.
The nearest land is Pitcairn Island, a British Overseas Territory, 2,000km (1,200 miles) away; and Chile - under whose
jurisdiction Rapa Nui has fallen since 1888 - is 3,800km to the east.
The undulating grasslands which roll away down its volcanic spine are dotted with more than 900 moai, the monolithic stone
figures with which the island has become almost synonymous.
But the chart-topping classical pianist is part of a vibrant, living culture that encompasses far more than just the famous
statues carved by her ancestors.
"I have this sense that Rapanui children learn to walk just so that they can dance and to speak so they can sing," says
Teave, 37.
In 2016, she was one of 11 Rapanui who set up the Toki Foundation, a music and cultural organisation which mixes
classical, traditional and ecological education to provide opportunities to young islanders in a society heavily reliant on
tourism.
IMAGE COPYRIGHT COURTESY OF TOKI RAPA NUI
The students can learn to play a variety of instruments at the foundation
Children as young as two take introductory classes and older students learn the piano, cello, violin, trumpet and
music theory. Some lessons are taught in the Rapanui language, and students can also learn ukulele, re'o riu
(ancestral song), takona (body painting), and ori and hoko - two traditional dances.Teave was born in Hawaii after her American mother had travelled to Rapa Nui and met her father, a musician.
The family moved to Rapa Nui while she was young.
"I never felt isolated," says Teave. "When you're growing up somewhere like that then it's your whole world and it
feels so big - there are still places on the island that I don't know."
When she was six years old, Teave took ballet classes and was captivated by the classical scores she heard
while practising her steps - although the classes stopped abruptly when the ballet teacher moved away.
Undeterred, Teave convinced a retired pianist to give her lessons, practising for hours after school fearing that the
reluctant teacher might put a halt to the classes and return to her peaceful retirement. At nine years old, Teave
moved to Valdivia in southern Chile.
IMAGE COPYRIGHT COURTESY OF SINFÓNICA ESTUDIANTIL METROPOLITANA
Mahani Teave grew up on Easter Island
"Leaving the island was a sour experience and I missed it so much," she remembers, "I couldn't understand why
anyone should have to leave their home and people to do something as natural as play music."
Teave went on to study with Armenian-American pianist Sergei Babayan in the US before moving to Germany.
Although her career has seen her play in some of the world's most famous concert halls, it was the vulnerability of
her culture and a glaring lack of opportunities on the island that drew her back to Rapa Nui in 2012 to found a
music school.
"While I was abroad, I would think a lot about alcoholism, drug abuse and other social problems on Rapa Nui, and
how these had a lot to do with the lack of opportunities," she says.
"It was on my mind that I belong to a culture that is on its way to extinction, and I always felt that there should be a
music school on the island."
IMAGE COPYRIGHT COURTESY OF TOKI RAPA NUI
IMAGE COPYRIGHT COURTESY OF TOKI RAPA NUI The school is self-sustaining with its own solar panels and rainwater
The school was built using rubbish left behind by tourists or washed up collectors
on Rapa Nui's shores
One of Teave's first students was Rolly Parra, who moved to the island aged six when his father, a Chilean naval
officer, was stationed there. He began learning the piano at the school, going on to win Chile's coveted Claudio
Arrau Award for his performances in January 2017.
"I was inspired by Mahani and would copy everything she did," says Parra, "If she played a Chopin symphony
then I would try to do the same, or if I heard her play particularly loudly or softly then I would do that too."You can also read
